Since its introduction to the public in the late 20th century, email has become a popular and widely used form of communication both at home and in the workplace. In addition to the advantages email introduced to the realm of interpersonal communications, by making the delivery of written messages quicker and more convenient, email further introduced completely new benefits to the exchange of written messages.
For example, the “Reply” and “Forward” functions available to email users introduced the “discussion thread”. Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which depicts an email exchange process 19 by which a discussion thread is formed. An email discussion thread is started by the transmission of a single email message 10 (the root message), from Person X to Person Y, as indicated by arrow 13. The content of email 10 is the text 20 written by Person X. This initial email transmission is defined as Round 1 of email exchange 19.
Person Y then replies, as indicated by arrow 15, to Person X, by using a conventional email “Reply” function. Use of the “Reply” function generates email 11, which contains root message text 20, and to which Person Y adds his reply text 21. This first reply is defined as Round 2 of email exchange 19.
Person X then replies to Person Y using the “Reply” function, as indicated by arrow 17, in which case his reply email 12 contains root message text 20, first reply text 21 and new reply text 22. This second reply is defined as Round 3 of email exchange 19.
One benefit of the email discussion thread is that it provides running documentation of a discussion occurring between two or more people. At any time it is possible to read the entire discussion thread beginning from the root message, and thus obtain a full picture of what was discussed, and which contributions to the discussion were made by whom, without a laborious search for documents.
Unfortunately, discussion threads significantly increase the volume of messages to be stored and processed by an email administration system. For example, the processes of indexing and searching message volumes become increasingly cumbersome with increasing message volume size.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.